The Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 79, no. 1, Spring 1995, page 169, has an interesting article profiling Companies A and D of the 16th Georgia Infantry, from Madison County. The article mentions that John A. Cobb, son of Howell Cobb (who raised the regiment) believed that two-thirds of the men in the 16th were functionally illiterate. He remarked in a letter that "about one-third of the men in the regiment can't write their names, so the pay roll has a good many X marks on it ..." The article includes statistics, including a breakdown of occupations of the men in the regiment. The great majority, 134 (76.5%) were farmers. Seventy soldiers (about 40%) came from landless households, and 66% of the men did not own any slaves.